1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cassettes and, more particularly, to cassettes having a plurality of different sizes and being adaptable for use with a common recording/reproducing apparatus, in which each such cassette has a connector with a plurality of exposed terminals for transferring informational data and a reference hole adapted to receive a positioning member of the recording/reproducing apparatus so as to improve the positional accuracy between a connector on the recording/reproducing apparatus and the connector of the respective cassette so as to provide proper contact of the terminals upon insertion of each cassette into the recording/reproducing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, cassettes having a recording medium therein, such as magnetic tape, have been proposed which include a plurality of terminals which are exposed on a cassette case thereof to provide information relating to the respective cassette. For example, such information may pertain to the contents of signals recorded on the recording medium, the type of the recording medium, a write protect or write enable condition of the recording medium, and so forth. Such information is supplied to the recording/reproducing apparatus after insertion of the respective cassette into the recording/reproducing apparatus to enable the recording/reproducing apparatus to satisfactorily perform a desired control operation(s) to ensure optimum recording and reproducing operation(s).
Typically, the plurality of terminals are arranged in an area on the back surface of the cassette case of the tape cassette. Such back surface of the cassette case normally provides an optimum location for arranging such terminals. However, such back surface may also be used for affixing a label thereto.
A recording/reproducing apparatus for use with tape cassettes having a plurality of different sizes, such as the recently proposed tape cassettes having a plurality of terminals described above, has been proposed.
Although the above-described recording/reproducing apparatus is adapted for use with the above different sized tape cassettes having a plurality of terminals, properly positioning each such tape cassette in the recording/reproducing apparatus so that the terminals are disposed correctly relative to the connector of the recording/reproducing apparatus may be extremely difficult. To compensate for such difficulty, the terminals may be arranged so as to have larger intervals therebetween which provide an allowance for a positional tolerance between the terminals and the connector. However, as is to be appreciated, such larger intervals cause the area for the terminals to be increased and, as a result, reduce the area available for labels.